The floor of a vehicle such as a van is normally located at a relatively high position. Thus, a step is arranged at a position that is one step lower than the floor at the doorway of the vehicle. In a structure in which the step is just arranged at the doorway, however, the step reduces the effective floor area of the vehicle. That is, the step forms a hollow space near the feet of a passenger who is sitting on a seat arranged on the vehicle floor. Thus, the passenger is forced to take an unnatural seating position. Further, luggage held in the passenger compartment may fall into the hollow space.
In view of the above situations, patent document 1 describes an example of a vehicle step device having an enlarged floor so that the hollow space, that is, the step area is sufficiently small. The step is configured so that it can be projected and retracted to compensate for the reduced step area. Specifically, a motor, which is arranged near the lower part of a vehicle door, produces forward rotation or rearward rotation in accordance with whether a vehicle door is open or closed to project or retract the step.
The device described in patent document 1 is expensive since it requires a motor used exclusively for projecting and retracting the step, a switch for detecting whether the step has been projected to a predetermined position, and a control circuit for controlling the motor based on a signal from the detection switch. Furthermore, in this device, to avoid interference between the vehicle door and the step or prevent excessive load from being applied to an object caught in the step, complicated control must be executed with the motor. This results in an inevitable increase in costs.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Examined Utility Model Publication No. 4-3870